Israel's President Herzog is pushing for a government led by Netanyahu for the next two years, in exchange for his resignation at the end of his term and a full pardon in his trial, reports Israel's Channel 14 News

Israel's President Herzog is pushing for a government led by Netanyahu for the next two years, in exchange for his resignation at the end of his term and a full pardon in his trial, reports Israel's Channel 14 News.

Reported deals of this kind, where an incumbent's tenure is traded for legal relief, sit at the intersection of domestic politics and coalition arithmetic rather than policy, and markets have historically treated them as noise until they harden into signed agreements or collapse. The actors matter here: the presidency in Israel is largely ceremonial, so the head of state's involvement signals the idea has establishment sponsorship, but the president lacks the authority to deliver a pardon mid-trial on his own timetable in the way the report implies, which is the first credibility test. The track record of immunity and resignation-for-leniency proposals in this particular saga is one of repeated floating and failure, usually leaking via sympathetic media channels before any principal confirms. The distinction worth drawing is between a trial-ending pardon, which removes the overhang on coalition stability and judicial-reform tensions, and a mere delay, which changes nothing structurally. Follow-ons are confirmation or denial from the principals, the attorney general's position, and whether coalition partners price it as real; shekel and local asset reaction in past episodes of this kind has been modest and quickly retraced absent a concrete signing or Knesset vote.